Torontoist & Waterfront Toronto Want You to Name a New Waterfront Park

At the foot of Sherbourne Street, extending across almost four acres from Lake Shore Boulevard right up to the water, a new public park is being built. Torontoist and Waterfront Toronto want you to choose its name.

By the time both of its two halves are open to the public—the part south of Queens Quay opens this summer, while the north part opens this fall—the park will boast lots of green (with almost two hundred trees), lots of blue (a water channel that runs the length of the park, with Lake Ontario sitting at the park’s southernmost end), a dash of art (three nine-metre-tall sculptures that together compose “Light Showers,” by artist Jill Anholt), and a lot of potential fun for its visitors (two children’s play areas, a pond that in the winter serves as a skating rink). The park’s green in that other way, too: hidden underneath it is a storm water management system, which takes in water, purifies it, and pumps it back out into the lake. Right now, the site is mostly isolated, but over the course of a few years, a community will spring up around the park, with George Brown College, residential buildings, and a whole fleet of Torontonians moving in to the area around it.
Just for now, the park’s name is Sherbourne Park—but that’s a placeholder for something better. That’s where you come in: until May 14, the public can submit their names for the park, right here. After that, a selection committee consisting of representatives from the City; Torontoist; Waterfront Toronto; Great Gulf Homes; Phillips, Farevaag, Smallenberg (PFS); and George Brown will meet to whittle the list of submissions down to about ten finalists. Then, on May 31, it’s back over to you, to vote our list of ten names down to three, and then vote one last time to determine our big winner. On June 16, Toronto finds out the new name for a park that’s worth getting very excited about.
Got an idea for a name? You can get started here.Photos of the park, taken on April 25, by Remi Carreiro/Torontoist.